Marta Buchaca

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LITUS 2012

SYNOPSIS

Three months ago Litus died in a car accident. His girlfriend, two friends and his former band mate, who has since become a music star, meet at Litus flat. Toni has called them to give them something Litus left before he died. When he does, everything totters. What started as a friends gathering to talk about the dead friend becomes an evening where friends will discover their innermost secrets and where all the tensions hidden for years will come to light.

Litus is a bittersweet comedy with a touch of thriller that speaks about friendship, death and love.

“I found LITUS to be a formidably written and directed piece. It seduces, entraps, amuses and thrills: I know few recent plays that are so strong in these four aspects.

What you first notice is the structural clarity, the ability of modulation and the economy of the story. Complete and well-drawn portraits of the characters are traced in just eighty minutes. It avoids clichés and at no time you feel that information is fed to you. The way that takes you from drama to comedy (and vice versa) without forcing the machine, without too much emphasis on gags, without too much emphasis on the serious bits, is another proof of the quality of the author. Laughter and pain are in place but not where you expect, and it almost always catches you off guard. This is the point: something that, in other hands, would have plunged into the average or the sentimental.

(…) The dialogue flows with remarkable smoothness, without fanfare, while a choppy rhythm, something that is not easy to achieve. The same can be said for the intrigue and tensions. It all leads with growing excitement into a beautiful and very well controlled final scene. (…)

(…) Perhaps what I like best is that it rejects fanfare and goes directly into what Litus wants to tell you, into what matters. It’s a generational work because characters are of the same age (early thirties), but Marta Buchaca’s intent does not seem to be to deliver messages on “today’s youth”, because there is no such thing, nor does she seem to have wanted to be “original” or “modern”. She wants to communicate her story in the best way: entrapping us with a plot and characters that she views with respect and affection, without quick and final judgments (…)

(…) I was about to say, at the most praise, that Litus is one of those plays that “do not seem to be directed”. But damn if it is, and very thoroughly: what is good about it is that you do not notice. Litus is having great success in Barcelona, ​​but can (and should) have even more in Spain. Programmers should keep an eye on it, as this comedy (or rather, tragicomedy) has a long journey ahead and it seems to me that it does have lots of money in the gut.“MARCOS ORDÓÑEZ

TIMEOUT

“At the beginning, Litus makes you laugh. It then gets serious, and throughout the whole play you can feel the emotions of a group of ordinary people being shaken by the untimely death of their friend. It has the spontaneity of what is real. In this sense, you find echoes of the best Argentinean naturalist theatre we have seen in recent years. This is theatre with no tricks or distractions.“SANTI FONDEVILA

DIARI ARA 05/06/12

“Peter Pan’s last letter. A meeting that begins as a comedy and relentlessly goes into an uncompromising drama culminating with the catharsis of mourning. Buchaca skilfully handles all registers, balances tension, controls tears and laughter, uses good tricks at the most effective times and shows great delicacy in the fine print of the characters. Moreover, she proves herself to be a good director..“ JUAN CARLOS OLIVARES